New possibilities to save energy when using industrial robots

Siemens ‘live’ robotic demonstration at their
booth in Hall 9 has proved a real hit with visitors to this
year’s trade fair. The exhibit itself shows how innovative
new software from Siemens has helped transform the clunky,
conventional movements of robots into smoother, more human forms
that yield energy savings of up to 50%. For those of you who
haven’t been able to see the demonstration, it’s like
watching ballet instead of old skool 80’s hip-hop.

I caught up with Siemens project lead and Integration Manager,
Matthias Frische at the Siemens booth to learn more.

What’s the background to this
project?Automotive companies are increasingly looking
at new ways to improve the energy-efficiency of their production line
robots. And 3 years ago, we were invited to collaborate with
Volkswagen and the Fraunhofer Institute as part of a
joint research project called “Green Carbody
Technology” to explore new ways of lowering the energy
consumption of robots in automotive production processes.

What was the inspiration behind your
solution?The traditional motion paths of robots struck
us as being very edgy and clumsy. They go from point A to B …
to C … then D. And we wondered what would happen if we
reprogrammed them to move in a more human way, where they cut out the
jerky steps of B and C that waste energy and move in a single smooth
arc. We took our inspiration from everyday situations where we as
humans have to move in an optimal way, like lifting a crate of beer
into the back of a car for example. Then we applied our findings to a
test robot to seewhat would happen.

And were you surprised by the results?We were
amazed! We had expected this approach to save up to maybe 5% energy.
But the first results from the lab were showing 30, 40 and even 50%
savings as we experimented with different motion paths.

What kind of benefits does this new system
offer?There are three main benefits: Firstly, obviously
the energy savings of up to 50%. Secondly, the smoother motion paths
mean there is less strain on components so the robot will last longer
and require much less maintenance. And thirdly, believe it or not
– the robot actually performs tasks more quickly.

What kind of reactions have you been getting from visitors sofar?The main reaction is very much “Why
hasn’t anyone thought of this before?” I mean the idea
seems so commonsense. It just goes to show how simple ideas often lead
to the biggest innovations. There’s also been lots of interest
from people in the automotive industry that see the scalable
opportunities with this. Just imagine if you have a hundred robots on
a production line that you can save energy with – that’s
a massive boost to your efficiency. Many of the maintenance guys have
also told me how they’ve been asking programmers to adopt this
kind of approach for some time. So they’re very happy to see
this too!

How long before we see this new technology actually in
operation then?We are currently using our findings to
enhance our Tecnomatix
robot programming software. The plan is then to make the first
prototype available to the automotive industry. And beyond that,
we’ve already identified new improvements that will bring even
greater efficiencies.